In the world of COVID-19, the pandemic has shown us how important brand image is. If you can be seen to be helping customers the most, trying to abate their fears, trying to maximize their positive thoughts and helping them to achieve something, you will forever be in their good books. Why? Well, in our time of need, we appreciate the businesses that come to our rescue. We will never forget the brands that changed and adapted to suit our needs and supply us with the things that we need, in new and challenging circumstances. This is what company culture is all about. Having an amazing attitude and an ethos that filters out to customers, is what you want to project. But what is trying to stop your company culture from flourishing?
Policies and procedures
Holes in our policies and procedures have perhaps, the biggest effect on our business. The policies that affect our company culture are in the categories like the following…
- Marketing – cultural sensitivities and timing of campaigns.
- Internal behavior – employees need to treat each other with the utmost respect in terms of gender, race, religion, political views, etc.
- HR – giving your employees a fair and equal opportunity to progress up the promotional ladder.
- Finances – having a financial scandal can hole you beneath the water, sinking your ship dramatically.
The procedures that you have, such as damage limitation, and risk treatments are areas which you need to refine over and over. These must be done annually, making sure that if you are having trouble efficiently reacting to hiccups, you learn to implement LEAN policies to retract and or change tact.
Belligerent employees
This is a sensitive topic for some leaders as they don’t do well when it comes to disciplining their workforce. However, when you have a belligerent employee, they can make the working environment a pain for everyone else. But what could be influencing their behavior and what can you do about it?
- Drugs – when an employee is under the influence of substances, they can be wildly unpredictable and a danger to not just themselves but others. Buy some generic drug tests, from drug test city and make your employees take these tests every other month. They test for 12 of the most popular drugs so if an employee is using any of the most common, they will be picked up and you will be alerted. They also do the testing too, so you can send the drug test back and hear from them in a few days.
- Disgruntled employees – were they passed over for promotion or do they not get along with others? You have to look deeper when employees are not getting on. Usually, they know that conflict can harm business and thus, they avoid it because no one wants to get fired or disciplined. So, always instruct your HR team to find out what is going on and then you should use conflict resolution tactics to solve the issues.
Too much too long
When your employees are working too hard and for too long, this can greatly affect the morale of your workforce. The company culture begins to sag, as all the employees figure they do, is constantly pushed to difficult deadlines with no rest in between projects. What this does is, develop a cocoon mentality whereby employees enter into work every day, shutting themselves off from anything else. This includes the outside world, family, friends, a social life. Inevitably, this will lead to consistently burning out your workers. A ‘rat race’ culture begins to form, whereby employees don’t feel connected to the work they’re doing, they’re just doing it to get ahead.
You can solve this by pacing your projects. This requires you to work closely with your business admin team, or simply to make sure there are a few weeks before a new project is to begin. Maintaining other projects and giving post-release support to clients is a good way to slowly wean off, reset and recharge batteries.
You!
Don’t be the overbearing boss, but don’t be the boss that puts his or her feet up all day and doesn’t engage in the company culture. You need to make sure you’re listening to your employees and try to accommodate their needs. If they want new chairs for the office, see what you can do! If they would like to have longer discussions, let them! Always show your employees, you fully support freedom of speech. Everyone is equal and allowed to say what they think without the fear of repercussions.
Company culture is almost a phenomenon to some folks who own a business. But trust us, its very, very real! You need to keep an eye on your company ethos and always make sure your core principles are shining through every working day.
